AUTHOR=Shim Yoonsik , Husbands Phil 

TITLE=Incremental Embodied Chaotic Exploration of Self-Organized Motor Behaviors with Proprioceptor Adaptation

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Robotics and AI

VOLUME=Volume 2 - 2015

YEAR=2015

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/robotics-and-ai/articles/10.3389/frobt.2015.00007

DOI=10.3389/frobt.2015.00007

ISSN=2296-9144

ABSTRACT=This paper presents a general and fully dynamic embodied neural system, which incrementally
explores and learns motor behaviours through an integrated combination of chaotic search and
reflex learning. The former uses adaptive bifurcation to exploit the intrinsic chaotic dynamics
arising from neuro-body-environment interactions, while the latter is based around proprioceptor
adaptation. The architecture developed here allows realtime goal-directed exploration and
learning of the possible motor patterns (e.g. for locomotion) of embodied systems of arbitrary
morphology. Examples of its successful application to a simple biomechanical model and a
simulated 3D swimming robot are given. The tractability of the biomechanical systems allows
detailed analysis of the overall dynamics of the search process. This analysis points out strong
parallels with evolutionary search.